Volt – Battery on the loose is your next obsession if you are done feeding candy to Om Nom, or if you like Cut The Rope’s gameplay, but don’t appreciate the game’s cartoonish visuals. Volt takes you to the maze of battery recycling factory, where an old battery named Volt breaks loose, and instead of heading straight to the recycler, endeavors on a dangerous trip to break free.
- Volt [Google Play]
- By Quantized Bit
- Category: Arcade
- Price: $1.99
Gameplay
The little battery is cute, but not too much – enough to care to lead him through the maze, but you don’t feel too sad when he crashes, either. And it crashes as much as you fail to pass a level.
Volt is a limbless battery equipped with a very limited power that can let him produce electric beams. You shoot the beams to connect to walls, destroy stuff, move objects, turn switches on and off and sometimes even charge generators. You learn all those tricks as you play, even though the game has helpful introductory tips. Â Just keep your eyes open for little details that matter.
The gameplay is pretty much like that of Cut the Rope – take good notice of the scene and all the items, try to calculate how they interact with one another and how and when you need to activate each of them to get to the checkpoint.
Controls
Swipe to cut the electric beam, tap on an object to shoot the electric beam at it. The beam will activate one of its features depending on the object. Also, keep in mind that beam’s radius is limited – Volt is far from Spider-man, alas. It can jump and push off the walls, but his abilities here are very limited, and if you exceed them, which is easy, it explodes – game over.
This brings an additional challenge to the atmospheric and beautiful puzzle platformer.
Visuals
Volt looks dazzling, even though I never thought I would apply this adjective referring to a battery recycling facility. Check out the screenshots and the trailer and see it for yourself – the visuals are superb. There are several worlds, or rather facility zones, that Volt has to go through, and they all differ in colors, traps and tricks you’ll have to learn. Overall, the amazing ambient soundtrack and visuals go well together and create a Badland atmosphere, but with less hurry and more brain power. For some reason, the game counts how much time you spend on each level, but I didn’t see how that translates into perks.
As far as the sound score is concerned, I’d recommend you play with headphones on – it’s really cool for the right person.
Developer recommends at least 4.5 inch display for best experience, and if you sport a device that freezes when you play the game, try turning the game quality to low in the game’s settings menu.
Levels
Volt features 4 worlds, facility zones, with over 60 levels in total. There are boss stages and 16-bit unlockable levels. You can also try to unlock more batteries and even unlimited lives.
Pros
- Intensely addicting gameplay for the fans of puzzle platformers
- Combines the best of ambient music and astonishing graphics
- Easy to play, hard to master
- Interesting mechanics
- Brilliant puzzles
Cons
- None
Conclusion
Imagine a hybrid of Badland and Cut the Rope – that’s Volt. It has the eerie atmosphere of Badland, with a beautiful deadly maze, and the little, fairly charming protagonist chasing, at his own pace, his way to freedom. On the other hand, if Om Nom puzzles get you hooked, you will certainly appreciate Volt’s take on the same premise. It is fresh, addictive, smart and challenging – a high quality mobile entertainment done right. As far as puzzle platformers are concerned, Volt is my next favorite game on the list of awesome puzzlers.
